WHAT  A BASE  HOSPITAL  LIBRARIAN  SHOULD 
KNOW— OUTLINE  OF  A COURSE  OF  TRAINING* 

By  Edith  Kathleen  Jones,  Librarian , McLean  Hospital,  Waverley,  Mass. 


Obviously,  the  first  thing  a hospital  li- 
brarian should  know  is  something  of  hos- 
pital organization.  To  all  outsiders,  the 
information  that  every  large  hospital,  even 
in  times  of  peace,  is  organized  and  admin- 
istered v er  such  strict  rules  and  dis- 
cipline uid  with  such  regard  to  rank  of 
staff  ai  1 employes  as  to  be  almost  military 
in  character,  comes  as  an  amazing  discov- 
ery. 

Do  you  know  that  in  the  ordinary  hos- 
pital— general,  state  or  private — the  Super- 
intendent is  the  apex  of  the  cone,  so  to 
speak;  that  immediately  surrounding  him 
are  the  widening  circles  of  the  medical 
staff : first  and  second  assistant  physicians, 
junior  assistants,  internes,  then  the  matron 
or  superintendent  of  nurses,  the  heads  of 
departments,  as  steward,  dietitian,  chief 
clerk,  gymnasium  instructor  and  librarian 
(if  there  is  one)  ; next  the  assistants,  un- 
der clerks,  stenographers,  etc. ; then  the 
training-school:  supervisors,  head  nurses 
and  pupil  nurses ; last  the  other  employes — 
engineers,  firemen,  electricians,  carpenters, 
porters,  cooks,  laundry  and  ward  maids — 
all  the  vast  army  needed  to  keep  the  ma- 
chinery running  smoothly.  Each  depart- 
ment is  under  its  own  head,  who,  in  turn, 
is  responsible  to  the  medical  superintendent 
or  the  chief  administrator,  and  every  per- 
son has  his  fixed  place  and  rank.  Nurses 
must  rise  when  a physician  enters  the  ward 
or  room  and  remain  standing  till  he  goes 
out.  If  there  is  a training  school  for  men 
as  well  as  women  nurses  the  discipline  is 
especially  strict. 

Now  translate  all  this  into  military  terms 
and  you  have  the  commanding  officer,  who 
is  a colonel,  in  place  of  the  superintendent, 
surrounded  by  his  majors,  captains  and 
lieutenants,  who  comprise  the  medical  staff. 
The  administrative  staff  is  composed  of  the 
adjutant,  the  quartermaster,  the  chaplain 
and  other  officers;  the  non-commissioned 
officers,  wardmasters,  clerks,  stenographers, 

* Read  before  the  A.  L.  A.  at  the  Saratoga 
conference,  July  2,  1918. 


carpenters,  etc.,  who  are  enlisted  men;  the 
nursing  corps,  consisting  of  women,  headed 
by  the  chief  nurse  who  is  responsible  for 
their  work  and  behavior  and  must  disci- 
pline them  if  they  break  rules.  The  nurses 
and  the  enlisted  men  are  not  allowed  to 
speak  to  each  other  except  to  give  and 
receive  orders. 

The  chaplain  is  in  charge  of  the  educa- 
tional and  recreational  as  well  as  religious 
activities  of  the  hospital,  therefore  the 
library  nominally  is  under  his  command, 
tho  in  most  cases  he  has  so  many  other 
things  to  attend  to  that  he  is  glad  to  let 
the  librarian  take  the  initiative  and  go  to 
the  commanding  officer  for  orders  and  per- 
missions. 

Besides  all  this  personnel,  there  are  the 
patients,  for  whose  benefit  the  hospital  is 
organized  and  carried  on.  The  library  must 
take  intb  consideration  the  needs  of  all 
these  persons — patients,  officers,  nurses  and 
enlisted  men — numbering  anywhere  from  a 
few  hundred  to  several  thousand. 

Now  there  are  several  varieties  of  army 
hospitals,  but  the  only  ones  which  concern 
us  are:  the  base  hospitals  connected  with 
training  camps,  the  general  military  (or 
naval)  hospitals  and  the  “reconstruction 
hospitals,”  not  connected  with  any  camp. 
In  the  first,  therefore,  the  library  has  the 
camp  library  to  draw  upon  for  help  and  for 
books;  in  the  second  and  third  she  must 
rely  upon  the  nearest  large  public  library 
and  dispatch  office. 

The  training-camp  base  hospital  receives 
the  men  from  that  camp;  cases  of  measles, 
scarlet  fever,  pneumonia,  etc.,  which  go  into 
the  medical  wards;  accident  and  operative 
cases,  assigned  to  the  surgical  wards;  men- 
tal cases,  including  epileptics  and  feeble- 
minded, who  are  put  in  the  psychiatric 
wards. 

The  general  hospitals,  unconnected  with 
any  camp,  receive  the  chronic  or  severe 
cases  from  the  camp  hospitals,  the  troop 
ships  or  the  various  fronts;  shell-shock, 
gassed,  sick  and  wounded  men  from  France. 


The  reconstruction  hospitals  take  the 
crippled  soldiers  and  teach  them  trades  and 
occupations,  fit  them  with  new  arms  and 
legs,  and  turn  them  out  prepared  to  earn 
their  own  livings.  In  addition,  there  will 
be,  of  course,  the  hospitals  for  chronic 
cases  who  must  be  cared  for  all  their  lives 
by  the  government.  All  these  hospitals  will 
be  more  or  less  permanent  institutions  and 
the  libraries  in  them  should  be  placed  at 
the  outset  on  a permanent  footing.  Here, 
especially,  the  librarian  should  be  enlisted 
for  the  duration  of  the  war  or  longer;  fre- 
quent changes  will  be  disastrous. 

In  these  hospitals,  then,  we  have  a large 
community  of  men  and  women  isolated 
from  the  rest  of  the  world  (for  even  in 
the  training  camps  the  base  hospital  is 
placed  way  off  in  one  corner),  away  from 
camp  activities  or  outside  recreation.  They 
must  have  recreation,  so  along  comes  the 
Red  Cross  and  puts  up  a house  for  the 
use  of  the  convalescent  patients  and  makes 
it  as  homelike  as  possible.  They  must  have 
books  and  magazines,  for  these  armies  of 
this  world  war  are  reading  men,  called  from 
all  walks  of  life,  so  the  A.  L.  A.  offers  to 
provide  books  and  certain  periodicals  and 
a librarian  if  the  hospital  will  provide  the 
room  or  building,  the  shelving  and  a few 
other  things. 

Now  arises  the  question  of  housing  the 
library.  Shall  it  be  in  the  Red  Cross  build- 
ing, which  generously  offers  its  wall  space 
and  perhaps  a room  for  its  use,  or  shall  we 
ask  for  a separate  building — the  chapel, 
perhaps — and  set  up  housekeeping  for  our- 
selves? This  is  a nice  question,  for  there 
is  much  to  be  said  on  both  sides.  The  Red 
Cross  house  furnishes  a pretty  and  very 
popular  place,  but  it  is  noisy,  for  either 
the  pianola  or  the  piano  is  going  from 
morning  till  night  and  sometimes  there  is 
a billiard  room  also;  the  nurses  and  en- 
listed men  are  not  supposed  to  use  these 
rooms  till  after  hours  (late  in  the  evening) 
and,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  the  librarian 
is  a guest  in  the  Red  Cross  house  and  has 
not  the  same  freedom  which  she  would  have 
in  a home  of  her  own. 

On  the  other  hand,  while  the  separate 
room  or  building  will  not  prove  so  popular 
with  the  convalescent  patients,  it  is  a boon 


to  the  enlisted  men,  who  can  run  in  at 
noon  mess  and  from  supper  till  bedtime, 
read  the  papers,  magazines  and  books  and 
have  a pretty,  quiet  and  comfortable  place 
to  sit  and  a woman  to  talk  to — things  he 
cannot  get  at  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  which  is 
the  enlisted  man’s  only  recreation  room. 
Moreover,  in  a separate  house,  the  libra- 
rian can  impress  her  own  individuality 
upon  it,  making  it  pretty  and  attractive, 
with  lots  of  color,  yet  keeping  it  masculine; 
can  put  up  maps,  pictures,  and  use  bulle- 
tin boards  for  publicity  purposes  as  she 
pleases,  can  have  a quiet  place  in  which 
to  work  and  to  make  her  plans  for  the 
different  branch  libraries  in  the  Red  Cross 
house,  nurses’  quarters,  officers’  quarters, 
etc.,  and  plan  her  ward  libraries  for  the 
next  day.  For  the  hospital  librarian  will 
spend  her  mornings  on  the  wards,  taking 
magazines,  books  and  scrapbooks  to  the 
bed-patients,  talking  to  them  and  cheering 
them  up. 

Whichever  plan  is  carried  out,  the  libra- 
rian must  work  in  close  co-operation  with 
the  Red  Cross  people  and  the  Y.  M.  C.  A., 
for  all  are  doing  the  same  sort  of  work. 
And  there  is  always  at  least  one  woman 
resident  in  the  Red  Cross  house  with  whom 
the  librarian  will  naturally  associate. 

This  brings  us  to  the  next  thing  a hos- 
pital librarian  ought  to  know — her  living 
conditions  and  social  status.  Both  of  these 
are  rather  unsatisfactory  at  present,  for 
women  are  now  for  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  the  world  being  admitted  into 
army  life  in  other  capacities  than  that  of 
nurse,  and,  naturally,  there  is  no  place  for 
them  and  they  have  no  rank.  The  nurses’ 
quarters,  where  most  of  them  are  now 
housed,  are  crowded  and  not  very  comfort- 
able. In  some  hospitals,  in  or  near  a town, 
the  commanding  officer  prefers  to  furnish 
transportation  and  have  the  librarian  live 
outside.  This  is  really  the  most  comfortable 
for  the  librarian.  It  has  just  been  arranged 
with  the  Red  Cross  Headquarters  at  Wash- 
ington to  have  the  librarians  room  and 
eat  in  their  houses,  but  this  is  possible 
only  in  the  new  type  of  house  with  several 
chambers,  and  then  only  when  these  cham- 
bers are  not  needed  for  families  of  very 
sick  boys.  There  are,  then,  three  possibil- 


ities  of  housing,  all  of  them  calling  for 
meals  in  the  hospital  either  in  officers’  mess, 
nurses’  quarters  or  Red  Cross  House. 
Under  the  very  best  conditions  living  is 
not  luxurious  to  say  the  least,  and  some- 
times it  is  disagreeable,  but  the  librarian 
should  thoroly  understand  all  this  before 
she  undertakes  the  work  and  remember 
always  that  we  women  were  not  invited  to 
enter  this  world  of  men  and  if  we  do  in- 
trude we  must  bear  ourselves  as  good  sol- 
diers and  not  complain  of  hard  beds,  soiled 
table  linen,  lack  of  bathrooms,  suffocating 
heat  and  dust  in  summer,  freezing  cold  in 
winter,  and  tobacco  smoke  all  the  time. 

All  this  brings  us  to  the  librarian  her- 
self— her  qualifications  for  a position  in- 
volving delicate  readjustments  of  all  her 
previous  conceptions  of  living  and  work- 
ing. What  is  the  first  qualification  de- 
manded? Library  training? 

Now  I expect  a storm  of  protest  from 
all  you  A.  L.  A.  people,  but  I most  em- 
phatically put  that  at  the  very  end.  Mind, 
I do  not  say  she  need  not  have  any  library 
training,  for  she  should  have  the  funda- 
mental principles,  but  first  of  all  she  must 
have  certain  traits  of  character  which  are 
indispensable  if  we  wish  to  make  these 
base  hospital  libraries  a success — and  we 
cannot  afford  to  have  a single  one  a failure ! 

First  of  all,  she  must  be  mature.  A 
camp  is  no  place  for  a young  girl  anyway, 
and  in  a base  hospital,  where  the  librarian 
comes  into  such  close  contact  with  so  many 
men,  she  must  be  able  to  meet  officers  with 
dignity,  chaperone  the  nurses,  and  mother 
the  boys.  The  officers  do  not  want  a young 
girl — in  fact,  they  will  not  have  her ! She 
is  only  an  embarrassing  adjunct.  The  chief 
nurse  does  not  want  her — she  already  has 
the  responsibility  of  from  one  to  three  hun- 
dred other  girls.  The  enlisted  men  don’t 
want  her — they  are  so  keen  on  their  job 
that  girls  (except  the  one  girl  back  home 
that  almost  every  one  of  them  has,  appar- 
ently) do  not  exist.  The  patients  don’t 
want  her — they  want  some  one  they  can 
talk  to  as  they  would  their  mothers,  for 
when  these  soldiers  of  ours  are  sick  in 
hospital  they  are  just  homesick  boys  and 
they  want  to  be  mothered,  and  a young  girl 
can’t  do  that.  As  one  sailor  affectionately 


told  the  librarian  at  his  naval  station,  “You 
are  mother  and  grandmother  and  aunt  and 
sister  and  sweetheart  all  in  one.”  Ob- 
viously a young  girl  can’t  be  grandmother 
to  a lot  of  boys!  Accept  this  great,  out- 
standing fact,  then,  that  young  girls  are 
not  wanted  in  camp  and  that  for  once  mid- 
dle-aged women  are  at  a premium — if  they 
are  the  right  kind. 

Second,  the  librarian  must  be  dignified. 
In  any  institution  where  so  many  men  and 
women  are  living  in  such  cramped  quar- 
ters and  pursue  the  same  routine  day  after 
day,  there  are  bound  to  be  petty  jealousies, 
gossip,  scandal  and  quarrels.  The  librarian 
must  keep  her  dignity,  take  sides  with  none, 
be  friends  with  all.  She  must  bear  herself 
so  that  neither  officers  nor  men  will  dare 
to  be  familiar  with  her. 

She  must  be  loyal  to  the  hospital  and 
her  superior  officers.  No  longer  is  the 
library  the  supremely  important  thing — the 
hospital  and  what  it  stands  for  is  that — and 
only  as  the  library  is  subordinated  to  and 
serves  the  needs  of  the  hospital  is  it  efficient 
or  necessary. 

The  librarian  must  be  able  not  only  to 
take  orders  and  accept  a reprimand  in  a 
soldierly  spirit  but  she  must  be  able  to  give 
orders  tersely  and  explicitly.  The  common 
soldier  is  not  supposed  to  think  for  him- 
self but  he  is  trained  to  obey  orders.  She 
must  know  how  to  approach  the  command- 
ing officer  or  other  officers  with  a well- 
formulated  plan  to  be  accepted  or  vetoed  by 
them;  she  must  not  waste  their  time  and 
patience  by  asking  help  in  deciding  which 
of  two  or  three  plans  might  better  be  car- 
ried out;  she  is  liable  to  a curt  dismissal 
if  she  does. 

She  must  not  be  sensitive  and  she  must 
not  be  sentimental.  Sympathy  the  boys 
want,  but  how  they  do  hate  to  be  wept 
over ! 

If  in  addition  to  all  these  admirable 
traits  the  librarian  can  sing,  play,  draw, 
paint,  play  games,  get  up  impromptu  enter- 
tainments on  rainy  days  or  dull  evenings 
when  the  boys  will  not  respond  to  ordinary 
methods  of  cheering  up,  or  if  she  is  skilled 
in  any  branch  of  handicrafts  and  can  teach 
the  boys  to  do  things — then  she  is  indeed  a 
treasure  and  the  possession  of  any  of  these 


4 


accomplishments  might  well  balance  a lack 
of  library  training. 

Still,  we  cannot  overlook  the  undeniable 
fact  that  a librarian  is  supposed  to  deal 
with  books,  and  it  is  very  essential  that 
she  should  know  them  well,  have  read 
them,  enjoyed  them  and  be  able  to  inter- 
est the  boys  in  them.  The  boys  want 
detective  and  “wild  west”  stories,  adven- 
ture, romance  and  poetry  when  they  are 
sick;  she  must  be  able  to  select  them  off- 
hand. When  they  are  convalescing  they 
are  restless,  eager  to  get  back  into  the 
game,  and  they  fret  for  fear  they  will 
get  behind  in  their  classes  and  the  other 
men  will  get  to  France  before  they  do. 
Then  they  demand  books  on  gas  engines, 
turbines,  radio  and  wireless,  trigonometries, 
all  sorts  of  things  a woman  knows  little 
about.  The  librarian  must  know  how  to 
get  these  books  and,  what  is  more,  must  be 
thrilled  when  the  eager  boys  show  her 
pages  of  “beautiful”  tables  of  logarithms, 
pictures  of  milling  machines,  and  explain 
to  her  “how  the  wheels  go  round.”  Em- 
phatically, she  must  know  books  as  well  as 
love  boys. 

Don’t  I advocate  library  training?  Most 
assuredly  I do ! I have  been  trying  for 
seven  years  to  get  the  large  private  hos- 
pitals to  put  in  good  libraries  and  trained 
librarians  just  because  I know  how  much 
more  efficient  training  makes  a person.  Yet 
it  is  a fact  that  in  a hospital  library  you 
must  forget  all  the  rules  you  have  learned 
except  the  fundamentals.  The  camp  libra- 
ries have  learned  this  too.  They  have  found 
that  it  takes  all  their  time  to  get  books  out 
fast  enough  for  the  men  to  read  them — so 
eager  are  they — and  that  a book  circulates 
just  as  well  and  isn’t  lost  any  oftener  if 
it  isn’t  in  an  accession  book  or  a card 
catalog  or  even  a shelf-list,  and  if  it  hasn’t 
an  elaborate  book  and  name  card.  These 
camps  have  taught  us  librarians  many 
things  and  one  is  to  forget  rules  and  re- 
member only  books  and  people.  I have 
heard  of  a librarian  who  “is  the  sort  of 
librarian  to  whom  a book  is  something  to 
be  cataloged.”  We  do  not  want  that  sort 
in  our  base  hospitals. 

Nevertheless,  in  order  to  forget  things 
one  must  first  have  learned  them,  and  even 


a hospital  librarian  must  have  some  rudi- 
ments of  librarianship,  tho  these  can  be 
learned  while  personality  cannot.  Given 
two  applicants  of  equally  charming  per- 
sonality, knowledge  of  books  and  love  of 
boys,  one  a trained  librarian  and  the  other 
not,  I would  give  preference  to  the  trained 
librarian.  But , given  a rather  colorless, 
ineffectual  sort  of  person  who  is  an  expert 
librarian  and  another  applicant  who  has 
traveled  extensively,  speaks  French,  Italian 
and  a few  other  languages,  has  a keen  sense 
of  humor  and  is  interesting  to  meet,  but 
has  no  library  experience  except  a knowl- 
edge of  books,  certainly  I would  prefer  the 
latter,  tho  I would  suggest  that  she  learn 
enough  about  classification,  cataloging  and 
a few  other  things  to  enable  her  to  carry  on 
the  library. 

Even  a trained  librarian  going  from  a 
public  or  a college  library  into  a hospital 
must,  I think,  be  bewildered  at  first  by  the 
utterly  changed  conditions  and  new  prob- 
lems. It  is  no  longer  library  first,  every- 
thing done  according  to  approved  method, 
books  all  in  order,  readers  coming  to  you, 
but  hospital  first,  last  and  always,  books 
suited  to  the  patients  to  whom  you  must 
take  them,  previous  methods  often  inade- 
quate, individuality  and  ingenuity  needed. 
In  the  fifteen  years  since  I left  a college 
library  to  enter  that  of  a hospital  I had  for- 
gotten all  this  till  I found  several  of  the 
base  hospital  librarians  confronting  these 
same  problems  and  just  as  bewildered  as 
I remember  to  have  been.  One  such  libra- 
rian said  to  me,  “I  see  I must  revise  all  my 
ideas  of  library  work.” 

Realizing  something  of  this  and  knowing 
the  value  of  personality  even  without  train- 
ing, it  was  suggested  by  Headquarters  that 
a short  course  of  supplementary  training 
for  base  hospital  work  might  be  introduced 
into  some  of  the  schools  for  library  science. 
Such  a course  is  being  worked  out  at  Sim- 
mons College  this  summer.  This  library 
school  was  chosen  because  it  is  near  sev- 
eral large  general  hospitals  and  near  Mc- 
Lean Hospital,  which  is  acknowledged  to 
have  the  most  beautiful  library  of  any  hos- 
pital in  the  country,  near  a training  camp, 
a naval  base  hospital,  a large  public  library 
which  is  the  center  of  war  activities,  an 


5 


A.  L.  A.  Dispatch  Office  and  several  schools 
for  training  teachers  in  occupational  the- 
rapy and  trades  for  reconstruction  hospitals. 
Visits  to  such  places  give  an  idea  of  all 
kinds  of  hospital  and  war  library  service. 

This  course,  as  it  is  organized,  includes 
lectures  on  hospital  and  camp  conditions; 
housing  the  libraries;  qualifications  and 
duties  of  librarians;  care  of  the  medical 
library;  publicity  methods;  relations  of  base 
hospital  libraries  to  A.  L.  A.  Headquarters 
and  to  camp  libraries.  Also  lectures  on 
book  selection  and  ways  of  getting  books 
to  patients,  officers  and  nurses,  with  brief 
analysis  of  detective,  mystery  and  secret 
service  stories;  wild  west  and  adventure; 
romance  and  love  stories  and  the  little 
books  for  bed  patients  (including  scrap- 
books); poetry,  essays,  drama  and  art; 
books  in  French  and  other  languages  and 
the  opportunity  to  teach  foreigners  Eng- 
lish and  our  boys  French;  travel,  history 
and  war  books ; outdoor  books,  games,  occu- 
pations and  handicrafts;  books  on  mechan- 
ics, engines,  etc.;  some  of  the  camp  refer- 
ence books.  These  lectures  are  for  all  the 
students.  In  addition,  those  who  are  not 
trained  librarians  have  lectures  and  prac- 
tice work  in  simple  classification,  catalog- 


ing, shelf-listing,  charging,  filing,  alphabet- 
ing,  care  of  periodicals  and  newspapers. 
The  whole  class  should  also  have  some 
practical  experience  in  sorting  gift  books 
and  discarding  the  problem  novels  and 
trash. 

In  order  to  ascertain  the  amount  of  in- 
itiative of  the  students,  examination  might 
be  given  along  these  lines : Make  out 
lists  of  forty  or  fifty  books  suited  to  bed 
patients,  convalescents,  officers  and  enlisted 
men.  Plan  a library  housed  in  the  Red 
Cross  house  (new  type)  and  also  in  a sepa- 
rate building  or  room.  Outline  a plan  of 
advertising  the  library  thruout  the  hos- 
pital. Tell  what  special  qualifications  each 
applicant  thinks  she  has  for  entertaining 
boys  or  being  helpful  to  them. 

Such  a course  should  enable  the  base 
hospital  librarian  to  approach  her  peculiar 
problems  with  confidence  instead  of  be- 
wilderment, and  so  prove  of  practical  value. 
It  also  should  provide  an  especially  well- 
equipped  personnel  from  which  A.  L.  A. 
Headquarters  may  draw  to  provide  satis- 
factory librarians  for  the  rapidly  increasing 
number  of  base  hospitals  thruout  the 
country. 


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